The London region is, by some distance, the most ethnically diverse in Britain. People from ethnic minority groups made up 40% of its population at the time of the 2001 census.

Greater London is the metropolitan area which includes the City of London and the 32 London boroughs. The average population of each borough is around 250,000.

The region has a population of over 7.1 million and covers an area of 1,579 square kilometres. The population density is 4,761 people per square kilometres, more than ten times greater than that of any other English region.

• Profile of the London region, including data on population, health, housing and employment (Office for National Statistics website)

All but one of the top 25 local authorities in the Office for National Statistics' 'league table' of ethnic diversity were London boroughs. Only nine of the 32 boroughs were considered less than 'highly diverse' (that is, a less then 50 per cent chance that two people chosen at random will belong to the same ethnic group.

Within Greater London, more than 50 ethnic groups are represented in numbers of 10,000 or more. Nearly three-quarters of England's total Black African population live in London, as do six out of ten Black Caribbeans, half the Bangladeshi population, one in four Indians, a third each of England's White Irish, Mixed, and Chinese populations, and one in five Pakistanis.

Population by ethnic group

London

Population: 7,172,091

Ethnic group/sub-group		Population	Proportion compared to national average
White		5,103,203	71.1% 90.9%
	British	4,287,861	59.7% 86.9%
	Irish	220,488	3.07% 1.27%
	Other	594,854	8.29% 2.66%
Mixed		226,111	3.15% 1.30%
	White and Black Caribbean	70,928	0.98% 0.47%
	White and Black African	34,182	0.47% 0.15%
	White and Asian	59,984	0.83% 0.37%
	Other mixed	61,057	0.85% 0.30%
Asian		866,693	12.0% 4.57%
	Indian	436,993	6.09% 2.09%
	Pakistani	142,749	1.99% 1.43%
	Bangladeshi	153,893	2.14% 0.56%
	Other Asian	133,058	1.85% 0.48%
Black		782,849	10.9% 2.30%
	Caribbean	343,567	4.79% 1.14%
	African	378,933	5.28% 0.96%
	Other Black	60,349	0.84% 0.19%
Chinese		80,201	1.11% 0.44%
Other ethnic group		113,034	1.57% 0.43%

Source: Census 2001, Office for National Statistics

A constantly evolving city

There is, however, a marked difference in concentrations of people from ethnic minorities between inner London and outer London - in the former, a little over half of all residents are white and of British ethnic origin, but for the latter the proportion rises to two-thirds.

London's ethnic make-up is constantly evolving. For centuries, the city has been the first destination for most people migrating to Britain. Today, the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in London are no longer Asian and Carribean people; over the last decade, white Europeans and African people have formed the majority of new arrivals. According to the 2001 census, the number of black people of African origin living in London has, for the first time, overtaken that of people of Caribbean descent.

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